It’s easy to read a verse like this and underestimate the pain felt by those who experienced it. When Isaiah spoke of burned cities, his audience carried painful memories of dead loved ones, even dead children. Some were children without parents. People who had once been happy lost land and life to foreign invaders. Prophets, from Moses to Isaiah to Malachi, were realistic about the pains of this life. Yet they also promised a future hope. For the faithful, who could believe in the midst of suffering,